Orthopedics trails in diverse representation in faculty, department chairs
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Key takeaways:
- From 2015 to 2022, the number of female department chairs in orthopedic surgery increased.
- The specialty had the lowest faculty representation of women and underrepresented groups in 2022 vs. other specialties.
SAN FRANCISCO — Orthopedic surgery lags behind comparable specialties in the increase in the representation of women and underrepresented groups as department chairs and faculty members, according to recently presented data.
Results of the retrospective review were presented at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Annual Meeting, here.
“The biggest conclusion, as usual, is that we need more data and more time to see how this is going. The fact of the matter is, it’s not great still. There’s a lot of room to grow. If you want to look at it from the ‘cup half full’ [view], it’s that we are growing and theoretically faculty and department chairs would be of the last groups to reflect the changes that are already being made,” Jacob Sherman Budin, a third-year medical study at Tulane University School of Medicine, told Healio.
Budin and colleagues evaluated the representation of women and underrepresented groups as faculty members and department chairs in orthopedic surgery compared with otolaryngology, general surgery and all clinical sciences, which increased from 2015 and 2022. They used data from the Association of American Medical Colleges from 2018 to 2022 and AAMC Group on Female in Medicine and Sciences data from 2015.
Budin and colleagues found the annual growth rate for orthopedic surgery for female faculty and female chairs was 0.63% and 0.96%, respectively. The annual growth rate was 0.32% and 0.11% for faculty from underrepresented groups and chairs from underrepresented groups, respectively.
When combined with less annual improvement, researchers found that orthopedic surgery had the lowest representation of women and underrepresented groups in faculty members in 2022 compared with the other specialties studied. However, there was an increase in the number of female department chairs in orthopedic surgery (7% in 2022), which researchers found was similar to the increases found in general surgery and all clinical sciences.
“We just need to keep putting effort in being intentional with every single step of the way until we have an orthopedic surgery collective that is representative of our patients,” Budin said.
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Budin JS, et al. Paper 396. Presented at: American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Annual Meeting; Feb. 12-16, 2024; San Francisco.
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